Of course you can level a text by analysing the vocabulary, sentence structure, illustrations, etc. but that's hard work. Here's a list for how to find the published levels for as many books as we can find...if the book you have isn't by one of these publishers you can try sites like the Scholastic Book Wizard and you may be able to find a level.
PM Texts
Nelson has a comprehensive database online so just search for the book title at the Nelson Primary Resource Finder (using either the Product Catalogue search at the top of the page, or the Quick Search in the middle of the page, doesn't matter). The short listing should show the "Guided Reading Level".
Sails Texts
The PearsonPlaces website has two large spreadsheets that seem to list all Sails books. Remember that when you search in the spreadsheets, you will probably need to go to "Options" and set your search to go through the entire document, as they are arranged in many different sheets or "workbooks".
Or you could try searching through these generated PDF versions of the spreadsheets:
OK, you're scraping around the bottom of the barrel now for ideas...you could try reading this article at Scholastic about reading levels. Or you could try the Lexile.com search. Of course, if all else fails, compare it to some already levelled texts and give it an approximate level - it's not an exact science.
PM Texts
Nelson has a comprehensive database online so just search for the book title at the Nelson Primary Resource Finder (using either the Product Catalogue search at the top of the page, or the Quick Search in the middle of the page, doesn't matter). The short listing should show the "Guided Reading Level".Sails Texts
The PearsonPlaces website has two large spreadsheets that seem to list all Sails books. Remember that when you search in the spreadsheets, you will probably need to go to "Options" and set your search to go through the entire document, as they are arranged in many different sheets or "workbooks".Or you could try searching through these generated PDF versions of the spreadsheets:
Macmillan or Momentum Texts
Many of these are listed in the Macmillan Guided Reading Resources document, or you may be able to find them by using the Macmillan Primary search page that is linked from the Macmillan Momentum page.Older Rigby Titles
There is also a leveling guide for older Rigby titles that could be useful - but only some books have reading recovery levels.General Databases
There are some general databases around on the web, these are worth a look if none of the above has returned a result. They are:Still stuck?
OK, you're scraping around the bottom of the barrel now for ideas...you could try reading this article at Scholastic about reading levels. Or you could try the Lexile.com search. Of course, if all else fails, compare it to some already levelled texts and give it an approximate level - it's not an exact science.